SORE WINNER SHOULD WASTE NOT, WANT NOT.

Byline: KIMIT MUSTON Local View

I suppose we all heard the same speech when we were children: ``Nobody likes a sore loser.''

Well, lawyers do. They always make money when a loser sues a winner. And psychiatrists can strike a motherlode of neuroses in bitter losers, while charging them a couple of hundred bucks an hour. Clearly a sore loser is a valuable member of any modern society, especially compared to that true social pariah: the sore winner.

Never met a sore winner? Allow me to introduce you to Browning Ferris Industries.

BFI is the corporate entity which operates a landfill in Sunshine Canyon overlooking the entire San Fernando Valley. There are actually two BFI landfills in the canyon - the fully operational county side and the currently inoperative city side. The city side was closed in the early 1990s because of concerns and complaints from the residents of Granada Hills, the neighborhood immediately adjacent to the dump. Neighbors didn't like their children breathing the trash fumes or inhaling the particulate from the constant stream of diesel garbage trucks, and they didn't like the foul-smelling seepage from the landfill threatening their drinking water, which also happens to be your drinking water and mine.

Then in 1998, in a stunning act of betrayal, the Los Angeles City Council suddenly approved reopening the city side of Sunshine Canyon. From the moment that vote was recorded, the law was in BFI's corner and no matter how intense the community opposition was, BFI's victory could only be delayed. And by late last year, BFI had reached the final hurdle - the local water board.

BFI promised to install a big plastic diaper to stop any future noxious fluids from escaping the canyon, but because the Van Nuys Reservoir is just downhill from the canyon, the water board decided to require BFI to double-hull their diaper. It wanted two plastic liners beneath the dump, and with that and other minor stipulations, in early December 2003 the board approved BFI's reopening of the 55 million ton city side of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill.

BFI had won, again.

And yet just a month later BFI officials appealed their approval to the State Water Board. That's right, they appealed their own victory. Because just winning didn't make them happy enough. They had complaints. A second plastic liner isn't required. It would cost over $200 million. It would take up space which could otherwise be occupied by valuable trash.

It's as if Keanu Reeves had won an Oscar and then refused to pay his tuxedo rental. It's as if the Dodgers had won the World Series and refused to pay shipping costs for the trophy.

Look, a second liner probably wouldn't cost anywhere near $200 million, but it would smooth community relations. And given the potential catastrophic costs of leakage, however unlikely, which would pollute our city's drinking water system, a second liner might look like a good business decision to another company.

But BFI is not just any company. It's a sore winner of a company.

According to WasteAge.com, an industry Web site that evaluates companies for investors, BFI's founder, Tom Fatjo, laid down the business plan for BFI when he started out in Houston, Texas, in 1967 with just a single trash truck. His approach might best be describe as ``Conquer or Die.'' It's a business plan as old as the Roman Empire and as common as Starbucks or Wal-Mart.

BFI consumed its competitors at a furious pace, hiring the ex-owners to run their old companies and paying them partly with BFI stock, which kept rising in value as the company expanded. BFI now operates in 48

states, Canada, Puerto Rico, Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East. In 1969, its revenues were $28 million. In 1977, they had grown to $308 million. In 1999, Allied Waste Industries, a smaller competitor out of Scottsdale, Ariz., but one that followed the BFI business model, bought BFI for $7.3 billion dollars.

That's billion dollars, with a capital ``D,'' which stands for debt.

So you see the problem. If your business plan calls for world domination, as BFI's does, and if you are lucky enough to actually dominate the world, then what? If you always win, then just winning isn't enough. You've got to win first prize, and second. And Miss Congeniality. The only person ever allowed to win anything is you. And you've got to be obnoxious about it. You've got to grind your opponent's nose in it.

Which is why nobody profits from a sore winner.